Exploring Pasadena’s Johnston Lake

Editor’s Note: This article has been published in our March 2026 Print Edition.

Johnston Lake in Pasadena (Photo – Matt Hormann)

Drunk animals, Hollywood films, catfish, and at least two drownings characterize this secluded spot in the San Rafael Hills.

By Matt Hormann

A street called Lakeview Road, a real estate sign touting “waterfront property.” There are small clues that there’s water nearby.

Nestled among oak, sycamore, and pine trees, Pasadena’s Johnston Lake is a hidden aquatic sanctuary in the San Rafael Hills, fed by natural springs that were once so clean that locals from nearby Garvanza would fill five-gallon jugs for household drinking water.

Now closed to the public and corseted by a chain-link fence covered in ivy and privet, glimpses of the lake are nonetheless visible. Waterfowl frequent the spot, and catfish once swam in its murky waters.

From Hidden Lake to Wandering Creek

Buoyed by natural groundwater, the lake, which was dammed in 1875, drains through a cement tunnel running southeast under Burleigh Drive, passing beneath the historic Norton House, and then becoming San Rafael Creek, the last natural tributary of the Arroyo Seco. The creek runs perpendicular to Laguna Drive, snaking around and often under houses before entering a graffiti-strewn concrete channel and draining into the Arroyo.

Today, lakefront property on its shores is prime real estate. Prior to the 1870s, however, it was wild and untamed, more morass than lake — a swampy area home to bobcats, foxes, mountain lions, and deer.

“It is said that a natural dam once held back a lake in the southern branch of the valley,” wrote Bernice Eastman Johnston in California’s Gabrielino Indians (1962). “Excavations for buildings here brought to light the bones of ancient animals, and artesian springs still well up from the ground. Mortars and other artifacts said to have been found at many points in the valley have long been scattered and lost.”

In the 1950s, Tongva Indigenous artifacts were discovered by a local Boy Scout troop just blocks away, testifying to their presence in the area.

Echoes of the Tongva

The lake’s modern era began in 1873, when Benjamin D. Wilson and John S. Griffin partitioned their San Rafael landholdings, including “water (a spring) and a small valley of semi-moist land” — a possible reference to Johnston Lake.

Among those who benefited was then–Los Angeles mayor Prudent Beaudry, a French Canadian who constructed the San Rafael Winery on the lake’s shore in 1875. Unsurprisingly, the Québec native named it “Beaudry Lake.”

Beaudry was enterprising in several ways: he dug a 480-foot-long tunnel following the route of present-day Burleigh Drive between Clubhouse Road and Brentnal Avenue. The tunnel was reinforced with heavy planks and was “high and wide enough to accommodate a fully loaded hay wagon,” according to historian Donald W. Crocker.

“[It] was intended to accomplish several purposes,” notes Crocker. “One of which was to provide a less difficult and more direct route for hauls of goods and supplies from the San Rafael Winery to and from Los Angeles, thus avoiding the longer road north on Avenue 64 to North Figueroa Street and then south.”

Beaudry used dirt from the tunnel to create an earthen dam, expanding the lake and providing more water for his winemaking operations.

In 1878, Beaudry conveyed the property to his brother Victor, who subsequently sold it to Alexander Campbell-Johnston, a Scotsman, in 1883. Campbell-Johnston named the region “Annandale” after his home in Scotland.

During this time, “there was ample clear spring water in the two canyons adjacent to the winery,” according to Crocker.

The intrepid Campbell-Johnstons had at least 50 acres of vineyards and leased additional property to local ranchers for grazing.

According to L.A. Times historian Cecilia Rasmussen, they produced industrial quantities of Angelica wine, a sweet fortified beverage made from the Mission grape, and sold it to a merchant on Aliso Street for 20 cents a gallon. Rasmussen notes that the resulting grape mash dumped on the shore led to reports of drunken cows and ducks.

San Rafael Winery (Photo courtesy of Pasadena Museum of History)

The Winery That Built a Lake

Subsequently, the lake became known for fishing, swimming, rafting, picnicking, bird-watching, and boating. In 1901, it was described by the L.A. Times as 600 feet long and 200 feet wide, reaching a depth of 20 feet at its center.

Pasadena’s Forgotten Playground

While small, the lake was no stranger to accidents and deaths. A child, Rule Bailey, drowned in 1904; a teenage boy in 1901. In 1922, a deceased woman’s decomposing body was found on the lakeshore. Foul play was suspected, but her exact cause of death remains a mystery.

Hollywood was also drawn to the body of water, which doubled as several exotic onscreen locales. Several films were made at the lake in the 1920s and 1930s, according to local resident William Carr, including one that used wind machines to create a storm scene. (More recently, the lake has appeared in Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, A Deadly Adoption, starring Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig, and Halle Berry’s sci-fi series Extant.)

Winemaking dwindled over the years and ceased completely in 1920, but wild grapes, descendants of the original vines, thrived until the late 1960s.

Prudent Beaudry’s earthen passageway was removed in 1923 due to safety concerns.

In 1946, Milton and Carolyn Winston purchased the winery acreage and subdivided it for homes, one of which incorporates structural elements of the original winery buildings.

In 1972, the L.A. Times referred to the lake as “polluted,” but nonetheless home to “bluegill, catfish, and ducks.”

Today, there are 18 homes fronting the lake, with an average price of $3.5 million. A gate code is needed to enter Clubhouse Drive, a reminder of the privatization of once-public spaces. The ducks pay it no mind.

From Public Lake to Private Enclave

There may also be a subtle but lasting undertone of racial segregation in the district. In 1905, a concern was raised about a “gang of swarthy Greeks” working on a nearby road, but the privatization of the lake itself in the 1950s raised questions about who is and who is not allowed to access natural resources.

The surrounding neighborhood was all-white by design until 1956, when two families of color, the Takayamas and the Osakis, purchased property on nearby Brixton Road, breaking the “color barrier.”

“[Johnston Lake] was publicly accessible until the 1950s, when racial restrictions were no longer enforceable by law and the homeowners association formed to fence it off to keep unwanted people from accessing it,” writes an anonymous poster on the Pasadena subreddit.

“I’m old enough to remember my dad complaining about Johnston Lake being shut to the public,” adds another. “He said as soon as brown folks started going there, [there were efforts] to close it to the public.”

While it seems unlikely Johnston Lake will ever be open for public use again, the adjoining San Rafael Creek may have a chance. Described by Stewards of the Arroyo Seco as “the last relatively natural tributary of the Arroyo Seco,” the creek “has long been considered an ideal site for stream restoration.”

Restoring it would mean removing the concrete channel guiding it into the Arroyo and taking down barriers preventing public access. “Local residents have always loved the natural character of the Arroyo Seco,” writes the organization. “It is what really makes the canyon and stream so special.”